St. John Fisher College
Fisher Digital Publications
Business Faculty Publications School of Business
8-2013
Improving Critical Thinking through Effective Pedagogy for Online Coursework - Benefits, Limitations and Best Practices of Online
Coursework
Mary Kay Copeland
St. John Fisher College, [email protected]
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Publication Information
Copeland, Mary Kay, "Improving Critical Thinking through Effective Pedagogy for Online Coursework - Benefits, Limitations and Best Practices of Online Coursework" (2013).Business Faculty Publications.Paper 14.
http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/business_facpub/14
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Improving Critical Thinking through Effective Pedagogy for Online Coursework - Benefits, Limitations and Best Practices of Online Coursework
Disciplines
Accounting
Comments
Presented at the American Account Association Annual Meeting, August 3-7, 2013 in Anaheim, California.
Education more accessible and affordable
Opportunity to interact with peers around the
globe
Students learning is paralleled with professional
requirements of the 21st century
Students are more diverse
professionally
culturally
ethically
geographically
Results in educational richness if student interaction is promoted
Initial and continuing faculty/student and
student/student face to face time
On-line dialogues
Interactive assignments (drafts to final)
Sufficient faculty to student interaction
(via email, phone, online dialogue)
Active learning components (transfer
from faculty centered to student centered learning)
Dialogues – on-line discussions where
students develop and communicate their understanding on course topics.
Promotes active learning (from spoon fed
to student led coursework)
Promotes autonomous learning
Facilitates well developed, researched
responses
Includes students less likely to participate
in live discussions and minimizes discussion domination
Increases students performance
-students are able to master learning objectives at a faster rate
Students stay engaged and move to the
Additional Psychological support for
introverted students by reducing the feeling of isolation
Reduction in drop out rates
Increases student performance
-students are able to master learning objectives at a faster rate
Students who need more time are
allowed to self pace their learning
Overall - students stay engaged and
Revamp Traditional Coursework
Do not merely use on-line coursework as
an alternative deployment for a traditional course
Rewrite the course to take advantage of
on-line tools and tactics that foster increased critical thinking skills
Ensure that course are pedagogically
Age impacted ability to learn on-line,
Occupation was not a factor
Students with stronger computer, research
and information gathering skills were more successful
More important than the delivery method A well developed on-line course results in a
significant increase in faculty/student and student/student interaction
Include on-line dialogue, email, face to face,
phone, etc.
Consider beginning with residency or upfront
team building
Consider a Cohort model to facilitate relationship
Require and train professors to transform and develop
their on-line course development and teaching skills
Plan for sufficient course development time – Pre-developed
curriculum seldom available or appropriate
Effective on-line curriculum requires innovation, time, testing and revision
Complete and test courses before launch
Technical Assistance - Make sure the institution provides
sufficient technical support and expertise
Planned down time – Interaction time can potentially be 24/7
Include dialogue and discussion options
Select a text with extensive on-line tools and
assessments (quizzes, self study computations, etc)
Utilize virtual team work and projects Incorporate webinars and other visual
instruction tools for computations and problems
Courses that include theory, research,
reading, synthesizing, and discussion are strong candidates for online deployment
Courses where visual observation is required
(art, physical education) or extensive computational problem solving
(mathematics, engineering, certain
accounting and finance courses) may not be a good fit for a 100% online curriculum
